Review: Doctor Who Classic: The Androids of Tara

1978. After the end of Season 15 (the abominable Invasion of Time) the show needed a new companion and, after the failure of that finale, something to pick the show up. So stepped in The Key To Time, a season-long arc in which the Doctor and new companion, Time Lady Romana, searched the universe for six parts of a powerful weapon. Androids of Tara (hereafter AoT) is the fourth part of this arc, but doesn't hold much of its baggage...
     The basic setting is the planet Tara, a medieval fantasy land. The only difference, it seems, is that wild beasts do roam the forests and while the peasants work with androids, the nobles use electrically powered swords. It's all a little odd, and the class divide isn't much elaborated upon. Instead, the entire episode is a homage to (well, more of a rip off of) fantasy novel Prisoner of Zenda. 
     Just for starters, the episode isn't bad. The melodrama just punctuates the whole thing, and there's a good medieval fantasy that The Doctor seems to fit quite nicely into. The android aspect makes the original book's logic a little more realistic, and if you excuse the appalling Taran Beast (pictured) then all of the effects are quite well done.
     Prince Reynhart is about to ascend to the throne of Tara, and is being sneakily fought for the title by the evil Count Grendel. When the Princess turns out to look very much like Romana (identical, in fact) then Grendel uses both her and his knowledge of Androids to try and kill Prince Reynhart. On the other side, The Doctor is assisting Reynhart in using androids of his own, to act as a decoy for Grendel's men. It all climaxes in a wonderful swordfight between Grendel and the Doctor, after which Grendel escapes to fight another day.
    As I say, it's more mediocre than bad, and anyone with knowledge of the original book will feel slightly cheated. I hadn't, and so that had an effect on my enjoyment of the episode. As it stands, this adventure with Doctor4, Romana and K9 is quite well-done and a nice change to the horror storied that preceeded it.

Thanks.